1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle door comprising an outer door panel, an inner door panel formed with an aperture and a plastic panel to which functional device of the vehicle door and door parts are mounted and which is installed to the inner door panel to cover up the aperture of the inner door panel with an intention to provide a lightweight vehicle door which needs a decreased number of parts and is easy to assemble, and a process of assembling the vehicle door.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typically, vehicle doors are made up of a door panel assembly comprising a steel inner door panel and a steel outer door panel to which various functional parts and devices of door, such as a window regulator and a door lock/unlock mechanism, are directly installed. In such a vehicle door, because it is necessary to install various functional devices and associated parts in a space formed between the outer and inner door panels, the vehicle door is hard to be light in weight in addition to poor suitability for assembling work of the plastic panel and a necessity of a large number of parts.
In an attempt to solve the aforementioned drawbacks, there has been proposed a vehicle door which comprises an outer door panel made of a steel sheet, an inner door panel made up of a metal main panel and a plastic auxiliary panel formed as one piece. The outer door panel has an outer door wall formed as a part integral with an inner frame defining a large aperture in which the inner door panel is fitted. Various functional devices and associated parts of door are assembled to the inner door panel before fitting the inner door panel to the outer door panel. One of such vehicle doors is known from, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No.9-156374.
In the case where the plastic auxiliary panel is separately prepared, the inner door panel can be unrestrictedly provided with various intricate shapes. As a result, since various fitting members such as clips are unnecessary to assembling the functional parts and devices of the door and, in addition, the functional parts and devices of the door are allowed to be disposed at various locations, a significant effect is produced in terms of increasing the degree of freedom for layout out internal constituent parts in the inside of the vehicle door. On the other hand, the vehicle door thus structured is hard to provide the passenger with reliable protection against a side crash.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle door comprising outer and inner door panels and a plastic panel attached to the inner door panel so as to close an aperture of the inner door panel, which has a higher passenger protection feature against a side crash in addition to providing lightness and high suitability for assembling work.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a vehicle door which is provided with an impact absorbing member fixedly secured to or formed as a part integral with a plastic panel so as to absorb an impact from the plastic panel for protection of a passenger upon an occurrence of a side crash of a vehicle.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a vehicle door provided with an impact absorbing member which is disposed in position laterally corresponding to the waist of a passenger sitting on a seat so as to force the passenger""s waist toward the opposite side for reliable safety of a passenger upon an occurrence of a side crash of a vehicle.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a vehicle door provided with an impact absorbing member which projects toward at least a door panel from the plastic panel so as to certainly receive energy of an impact to the plastic panel and to provide its own displacement toward a passenger compartment, thereby ensuring safety of a passenger upon an occurrence of a side crash of a vehicle.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a vehicle door having a lattice structure comprising a plurality of ribs which is easily adjustable in intervals between adjacent ribs and the thickness of the ribs so as to control structural stiffness and impact characteristics.
The aforesaid objects of the present invention are achieved by a vehicle door comprising an outer door panel disposed on a far side from a passenger compartment of a vehicle, an inner door panel formed with an aperture and disposed on a near side to the passenger compartment; a plastic panel to which functional devices of the vehicle door and door parts are mounted, the plastic panel being installed to the inner door panel to cover up the aperture of the inner door panel; and an impact absorbing member secured to the plastic panel so as to absorb an impact against the vehicle door upon an occurrence of a side crash.
The plastic panel having the impact absorbing member as a part integral therewith or a part fixedly secured thereto provides a simple structure for protection of a passenger upon occurrence of a side crash of the vehicle while improving suitability for assembling work of the vehicle door and realizing lightness of the vehicle door. In particular, in the case where the impact absorbing member is formed as a part integral with the plastic panel, it is unnecessary to provide an aperture in the plastic panel for installing the impact absorbing member to the plastic panel with an effect of providing the vehicle door with a necessary and sufficient space for impact absorption while the number of parts of the vehicle door and the man-hour in assembling the vehicle door are considerably reduced. Moreover, in the case where the impact absorbing member is prepared separately from the plastic panel and fixedly secured to the plastic panel, the impact absorbing member and the plastic panel can be made of materials meeting their functional demands so as to sufficiently perform their peculiar functions, respectively.
The impact absorbing member is disposed in position corresponding laterally to a waist of a passenger siting on a seat of the passenger compartment of the vehicle. This arrangement of the impact absorbing member forces the passenger""s waist toward an opposite side so as thereby to protect the passenger from injury upon an occurrence of a side crash of the vehicle.
The impact absorbing member projects toward at least the outer door panel from the plastic panel. The projection of the impact absorbing member certainly receives energy of an impact to the plastic panel so as to shift the passenger compartment. This provides reliable safety of a passenger upon an occurrence of a side crash of the vehicle.
The impact absorbing member has a lattice structure comprising a plurality of ribs.
The impact absorbing member in the form of a lattice structure comprising ribs can be provided with intended impact characteristics by controlling intervals between adjacent ribs and thickness of the ribs. The lattice structure provides the plastic panel with increased structural rigidity, so as to improve the function of holding various functional devices and door parts on the plastic panel.